Hypnosis for Stress and Anxiety

Anxiety can range from simple stage fright to a full blown panic attack. Everyone feels anxious at one point or another but for some people there are certain activities or certain places that cause such a fierce anxiety that the person cannot even function. Phobias are one expression of anxiety. Panic attacks are another. Psychologists estimate that as many 10 million people in the US alone suffer from anxiety to the point where it impairs their ability to live normally. People who suffer from anxiety may not be able to hold a job, go out in public, shop, drive, or do other everyday activities that are a part of a normal healthy life. Anxiety disorders can cause serious physical problems.

Stress is responsible for heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, muscle aches, Fibromyalgia, and other conditions that can sometimes be life threatening. When the body is under severe stress or goes into a panic attack the endocrine system kicks into overdrive and triggers a “flight or fight “response that is usually reserved for situations where the person is in mortal danger. But when someone is having a panic attack or is terrified to the point where they can’t function even if they aren’t in mortal danger they believe that they are, and the body responds accordingly.

Anxiety disorders are not new. People, usually women, have been diagnosed with anxiety disorders for centuries. In the past women with severe anxiety were often said to be suffering from “Hysteria” and were prescribed a number of different mediations including alcohol as a cure for their “Hysteria”. In almost every single case of anxiety psychologists can pinpoint one event or one particular time period in someone’s life that caused them so much trauma that the episode caused them to develop severe anxiety when exposed to anything that reminded them of that incident or time period.

There are drugs that can manage the symptoms of anxiety and help people function but drug therapy alone is rarely effective in treating anxiety. Hypnosis is widely recognized as the best treatment for the anxiety because it reprograms the person’s behavior and changes the associations that the person has on a subconscious level. Changing those subconscious responses is the only way to truly get rid of the panic and anxiety that the person feels.

A qualified hypnotist can put someone that suffers from severe anxiety into a deeply relaxed state and can change the subconscious cues that the person experiences. By eliminating the terror and the unhealthy behavior patterns learned as a child the hypnotist effectively removes the trigger for the anxiety. Then the hypnotist can place new hypnotic suggestions in the person’s subconscious so that, for example, instead of panicking in a crowd a person will feel happy and relaxed and excited to be around people.

Hypnosis for Stress Related Illnesses

Excessive everyday stress is a problem for many people that have overly busy lives. The stress of commuting, work, family, kids and other obligations often builds up until people either collapse or develop serious health problems like heart disease or high blood pressure. Stress can also cause other problems to develop like anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, Fibromyalgia, and other chronic conditions. Unfortunately for most people getting rid of the causes of everyday stress isn’t really an option, so the only option left is to try and treat the stress.

Drug therapy is usually not effective for stress related conditions. The best cure for stress is relaxation, like meditation. But most people don’t or can’t take the time to meditate on a regular basis. Hypnosis therapy can be a powerful treatment for people that need relief from acute stress because it puts the body into such a relaxed state that the damages of stress begin to fade away. Unlike many conditions the effects of stress related illness on the body are reversible with relaxation therapy like hypnosis. It’s not always necessary to go see a hypnotist if you want to use hypnosis to combat stress and stress related illnesses.

Self-hypnosis can be just as effective as having sessions with a trained hypnotist, once you know the techniques, and you can do self-hypnosis whenever you are stressed to help yourself calm down. Self-hypnosis isn’t an option for treating all conditions that can be treated with hypnosis because in cases where you are trying to change your behavior or the way that you respond to certain stimuli it’s necessary to have a trained hypnotist providing the hypnotic suggestions.

But if you are primarily using hypnosis as a method of deeprelaxation in order to help fight off the effects of everyday stress self-hypnosis is a much easier and cost-effective method of treatment. Think of self-hypnosis as a very intense type of meditation. You’ll get the same benefits from a self-hypnosis session as you would from a session of very deep meditation.

You can perform self-hypnosis to deal with stress anywhere, so even if you are at work or on the train and you are having a particularly high stress day you can use a self-hypnosis script that you’ve recorded and programmed onto an mp3 player or you can listen to a hypnosis cassette in order to put yourself in a deeply relaxed state.

If you start using self-hypnosis regularly in order to get rid of stress you’ll notice that the positive physical changes start almost immediately. You’ll start sleeping better and longer, your blood pressure will drop and you’ll notice that your muscles and joints don’t hurt as much.

Are you ready to take control of your stress and anxiety? Call today for a free consultation!